Re:Start
by OMGACookie
Summary: "I know you've never had this before, and I'm sorry I wasn't brave enough to give this to you long ago. But everybody's gotta start somewhere. So let's start again right here, to make up for what we hadn't before" (AU)
1. Chapter 1

Hey guys,

About a year and a half since I've last written fanfiction. Alot of school work to deal with...

Anyways, I thought I'd have a new take on the RWBY Universe. This is set around five years in the future of the events of the currently airing series. I'll do the math for you: This means that most of the characters are 22-23 years old (Ruby would just barely turn 21, assuming her birthday falls only slightly behind.)

This thing's rated T for now. Nothing's exactly explicit other than the mention of alcohol and more mature themes. No Genderbender (yet, I'll probably upload another story to do that with one of the characters soon) and no OCs in this one. Just pure imagination and the willing compliance of the hopeless cast of RWBY. Enjoy!

* * *

Pyrrha Nikos woke with a jolt.

Her eyes darted from left to right and then back left just for safe measure as she clutched her bedsheets and the truly unfortunate pillow that suffered from her firm grip. Once she relished in the safety of knowing where she was, her muscles relaxed and she heaved a light sigh to expel what tension remained. Today, a Monday, Pyrrha had little to nothing to do. She checked her schedule on her PDA once, then twice and then set it aside with another sigh, this time partly in helpless exasperation.

On the nearby bedside table, Pyrrha's digital clock read eight in the morning, the normal time at which she normally woke up for school. That aside, Pyrrha also noticed the familiarly patterned rays of light from the venetian blinds draped across the window in front of her bed that faced the cityscape. As was usual, too, Pyrrha found herself on the left side of the bed with enough space to her right for one more. Everything seemed in place there, and Pyrrha looked to the empty white ceiling of her room, mostly content with her waking... Except, only one thing did not quite match up:

Pyrrha Nikos never woke up with jolts.

Frustrated, she reluctantly launched herself off of the heavenly mattress of her apartment bedroom and shuffled over to the bathroom to wash up. She thought a quick splahs of water would cure her of her heavy-headed fatigue and dizzying anxiety to no such avail. Thus, she'd resorted to a warm shower as opposed to the cold ones she normally took to boost her immune system. Old habits die hard, she guessed.

A shower, Pyrrha found, proved a nice respite for her to spend thinking about the complexities that entertained her rather inactive life after Beacon. Thus, she'd ruminated on the other possibilities, such as cooking breakfast or watching the early morning news, but soon decided that a soothing stream of hot water would wake her best. She did not enjoy the groggy feeling of fatigue at all, and thought the alternatives a little lackluster. A huntress needed to stay alert at all times, of course.

Almost two years after their graduation from Beacon, Pyrrha found herself at a loss as to what she could do. With the world constantly shifting in around the equilibrium of power and peace, hunters and huntresses barely responded to any calls to help. Others, with a more benevolent disposition such as the modern day Cardin, decided to go to a school to teach. Some, with more adventurous cravings such as the ever ebullient Nora, preferred to go explore the great unknowns. Few, such as Pyrrha herself, opted to stay put and make sure that nothing went wrong or pursue other things other than just the senseless prospect of fighting.

On the subject of tangential interests, Pyrrha took a liking to music in the passing time after school. Jazz was her favorite, as was his, and she would teach in a nearby metropolitan conservatory during her spare time from Huntress duty, not that Huntress duty really got active these days anyway. Her selection of music, too, brought a much needed relaxed ambiance to her room as little melodies of Acid Jazz and Bossa Nova would ring in the background of her contemporary apartment. Sometimes, she wondered if her apartment was a bar for hopeless romantics and recuperating idealists, but Pyrrha took comfort in knowing that only she populated the room most of the time to begin with.

With every waking moment she spent at home, she would spend reading the new fiction corner, where she'd hoped to see a new submission of his writing if he ever chose to write again. Each time, she would click on the Vytal Times fiction corner and wait for the screen to load, only to sigh and find his name missing from the list of recently active authors. Odd stories interested her every once in a while, ones that deviated from the normal string of adventure epics that the mass public thoroughly enjoyed. But the more subtle, less violent, tales enticed Pyrrha more than anything, given that her interest in things she never once had was in the dictate of human nature.

When the online stories and Jazz grew too much for her boredom to handle, she waltzed over to the couch and found herself staring at the flickering television, whose plasma colored interface provided a wide variety of pointless game shows, reality shorts and the occasional drama she would follow. None of them really interested her, though. She saw enough in the last five years to justify knowing things more bizarre and horrifying than the twists and turns of the most formidable, award-winning shows. Upon reaching a show that she considered satisfactory, she sighed and slumped backwards, forcing herself to enjoy her morning's entertainment.

Pyrrha suddenly shivered from the vibration that came between her legs. Flustered, closer inspection revealed that she'd accidentally left her PDA on her lap and let it slide down without noticing. Inasmuch, she took the tingling sensation as a sign that she'd received a message from someone. A good guess would be that of Nora's incessant pestering or Blake's tired, but desperate, request to spend some time together. The contents of the message, however, would shock her entirely.

_Meet at Peristylium. Will bring tea and strawberries._

Pyrrha noted the custom made flourish of a signature neatly printed at the bottom of the message in the form or a lotus. It occured, then, that Ren, still a recluse but sweeter than a peach after years of associating himself with Nora, sent said text message. For what reason, though, Pyrrha wanted to find out, and so she decided to drag herself out of the comfort of her large apartment in the center of the city to find him. Peristylium wasn't that far, anyways.

A good five minutes and several traffic lights later, Pyrrha arrived at the Peristylium, a city-state park near the center of the cit, clad in an light dress that matched the vibrant hues of the Autumn leaves and her well-pampered fiery hair with a yellow scarf around her neck and brown leather boots on her tiny feet. There, she waited for a signal, some sign that would warn the arrival and presence of her companion. Then, of course, she'd forgotten that Ren never liked announcing his usually sneaky appearances and simply stared at the eclectic crowd around her.

No matter how or where she looked, though, Pyrrha always find herself staring at young citizens who aged just barely around their late teens. She would smile with every group of four who passed and thought them pre-destined to work as a team, though not unconventionally formed as was hers. On the odd occasion where they'd gotten lost, they would politely ask her if she knew where the shuttle to whatever school it was that they would attend and she would politely answer with a small apology, as always.

Then, of course, there were some who'd boasted of going to Beacon, a school now further revered by the actions of her class and generation. Ah, how those kids seemed to brighten up her day with their stubborn pride she remembered in him! Last she knew, most traces of that wannabe persona had since disappeared in favor of a more mellow set of standards, still equally exigent. She would smile at how readily excited their spirits were, evident in their large confident strides and highly held chins, if not chests. Inside, however, she grimaced at how difficult their lives would soon become.

"You're going to Beacon?" She would muse, feigning her intrigue. "That's cool."

Each group that earned her clueless response gave its response in a variety of ways. Many responded with a polite message of thanks and a wish that her day would go well. Others, who had their egos stroked to next Tuesday, would triumphantly march their way in the direction that Pyrrha pointed them to. Nonetheless, the few that remained would spend a couple of minutes to ask Pyrrha if she had any idea of how Beacon was like. Pyrrha gave all of these few rather byzantine responses, however, leaving most of the surprise of Beacon to the wonders of their young minds. Some things were best kept that way.

Yet, every one of them shared the same thing in common: Little would those students know that she was the very same Pyrrha Nikos whose name got etched into the stone of the Hall of Graduates. She frowned at all who said that she looked familiar but could not recount the name they associated to her beautiful complexion. As for the others who had no idea to begin with, she just laughed her ill recognition off. Morals dictated that she uphold her normally humble demeanor, though. So Pyrrha tried to avoid making the point that she'd felt somewhat disappointed with how they failed to recognize her. _No matter_, she would convince herself, _I must go and achieve greater things now. That's what he would've wanted me to do_.

And so, just like that, Pyrrha had spent around fifteen minutes shifting her gaze from one interesting thing to the next, answering one posse of students only to help the next. Sometimes she wondered if she'd better teach at Beacon to meet those kids in person but couldn't come to leave her friends behind. At least, she could not let herself do the same thing he did and just leave with a grand farewell and never return. She sighed at the thoughts she felt torn between letting them go or keeping them with her to pass not only time, but life. She sorely enjoyed their presence, though one was missing, and reasoned that she had nothing to return to, which was partially true. How much she would regret this decision, she could not be sure nor did she think so Life, she supposed, would always put her in situations like this.

Right on queue, Ren broke her chronic onset of loneliness. Instead of simply materializing out of thin air, as was his norm, however, he gently tapped Pyrrha on the shoulder and followed her quick spin with a cheesy smile. He'd kept his long hair, only occasionally trimming the spots he deemed imperfect or extraneous, and tied most of it into a long ponytail that draped backwards and fell to just about his waist. If one added long sting of hair on his beard, almost everyone would mistake him for another one of those South East Wise-men.

"Hello Pyrrha,"

She smiled. Oh, how that boy never grew out of his tender habits.

"It's always nice to see you Ren."

"Let's take a seat over in those chairs," the green-clad Asian suggested. "We could use a nice, vibrant view."

Since their graduation, Ren had become ever the artisan gentleman she always thought him as, even in their early days as a team. Even now, while they walked, he had a feminine way to his silent steps and a gentleness about his conditioned movements, each intentional and graced with the elegance that she had not seen in men before. There was a joke around Beacon at the time that Ren was a girl the whole time, to which the South East man had politely declined, and Pyrrha had almost believed in it. Her encounter with him in the shower one tiresome day when she was barely awake and went to the men's room instead, however, taught her otherwise.

"How've you been, Ren?"

"I've been better," the ponytailed artist replied in his soothing tenor voice. "Nora's been up an about on Recce with some other hunters and huntresses lately and apparently forgot our policy about not calling me at ludicrous hours in the night. Other than that though, I'd say I'm doing okay. How about you?"

"I'm holding up alright," Pyrrha slowly nodded her head as she took a womanly sip from the Ren's hand-crafted porcelain cups, "nothing's really happening for me since it's gotten peaceful around here."

"Yeah, gets kind of boring sometimes, doesn't it?"

Nodding served enough of a means to respond to Ren's question, Pyrrha knew that much. Any more and she'd given too much for him to work with. Regardless, the two spent a while talking of banal things that mutually entertained both Beacon Alumnus in a stupid kind of way: They rooted their conversations to things that would not mention any of the darker moments of their time in Beacon. And when the subject of school did come up, they focused more on discussing the rumors of Qrow and Ozpin and even Port. Here, Pyrrha learned of the myth behind Oobleck's caffeine fascination, surrounding his hyperactive speech with an incredulous means of comprehension. Inasmuch, she laughed away at how dumb the idea was and returned to avoiding discussion of Beacon.

Eventually, their conversation came to a halt as a comfortable silence washed over them. Pyrrha had noshed on more than half of the strawberries and Ren had consumed more than half of the tea he brought. A fair trade, Pyrrha supposed, that each would indulge their own guilty hunger for sweet fruit and mint-saturated tea, respectively. Though she'd rather that they return to distracting each other from a topic that would inevitably rise and evoke some less than flattering memories, she enjoyed the silence she rarely shared with another person... Until her companion broke it with a rather startling, but strikingly true, observation.

"Thinking of our fearless team leader again?"

"How'd you-"

"You're pretty easy to read when your concerned eyes give you away like an open book," Ren grinned. "Anyone can tell."

Pyrrha's head recoiled backwards as her shoulders rose just the slightest, holding a hand over her open mouth to hide her obvious surprise. Was it that obvious? Either that, or, surely, Ren spent too much time to know her that frighteningly well.

"I wonder how he'd be if he was still here," she eventually murmured through the sweetness of the strawberry she just ate.

"Older, wiser, goofier," Ren conjured from the lassitude of his freshly brewed lotus tea that seeped through his taste-buds and down the back of his throat. "That's how I imagine him to be."

The image of him in a more mature disposition came through Pyrrha's mind. Two years since she last saw him or heard any trace of him and now her imagination ran wild with all the things that he'd gotten himself into reinforcing her most bizarre fantasies. Two years could do wonders to men and women, Pyrrha knew, and the change she could expect may come to shock her more than her nightmares or restless nights filled with a yearning lust for his reassuring presence: As much as she would deny it, no matter how much she'd satisfied his crave for him, she still craved for him all the same.

Last she remembered, he made a promise to return. Promises were meant for friends to keep right? Did she think him more of a friend, though? He would be back soon, Pyrrha told herself. There's no way he wouldn't, and when he did, Pyrrha would do all that she'd regretted not doing before.

"I suppose you're right."

* * *

Whereas Pyrrha's heart raced as she suddenly sat upwards from her slumber, Blake, a girl still of many mysteries, woke with a calm smile on her face and a topless, exhausted Yang beside her. The two had just enjoyed a rather... Interesting night, what with Blake's fetish with her dark and old past: Yang played the master and Blake her slave as were all faunus back in the day. One need only imagine the rest.

It was an interesting experience to see how pleasuring the particularities of relishing her long since forgotten past seemed in the context of their frivolities. Many people had since suspected such weird things of Blake's interest before in their jokes but little did they know how accurate they were despite Blake's deceiving giggles of embarrassment. The giggling part, she'd learned from spending much time with Ruby in their shopping trips to more modest clothing and nerdy bookstores to boot. Deception, however, still ran deeply in her stream of consciousness.

Like Pyrrha, she took a shower. Though her thighs felt a little sore from all the pain and pleasure from the night before, sharp hissing could only do so much to mitigate the embarrassment of remembering how utterly sinful last night was before shoving the thought out of her head. Blake could only thoroughly wash her body to rid herself of the guilty pleasure from the night before, but no amount of soap would indefinitely scrub her clean of her depravity. That, she'd probably never change and might not have to worry about if Yang kept woke with a massive hangover and no means of recollection.

By the time she'd finished, her body had shivered from the massive difference in temperature between the water with which she cleansed her body and the cool air from the strong conditioning unit by the upper left corner of the living room. Blake put on her clothes with little to no hesitation before looking back at Yang's still sleeping figure, hoping that she would not wake up before the former left the house. Yang needed the sleep, after all, and Blake could do some good with time away from the drunkard at the coffee shop downstairs. Besides, she promised to go shopping with Ruby today.

Avoiding the scrutiny from the regular citizens of the city proved difficult for a faunus even in the present day. Not many opted to accept the proposed doctrine of non-discrimination, and still many rogue elements of the white fang existed to terrorize the now stronger civilization of Vytal. Whatever it was that Blake knew once concerned the organization, though, would never truly perish, even if it slowly died away with time, and she understood that much. By then, hopefully, nobody would make the same mistake, but Blake understood human nature too well to believe in such an idealistic future.

She nearly tripped over the stairs to the coffee shop entrance from how occupied her mind was on things she had no reason to concern herself with. Regardless, she shook her body from head to toe to wake herself up enough to make her order before shuffling herself to scrutinize the lounge for available seats. To her delight, she found Ruby, with her hood on, tucked into the corner seat by the glass barriers that separated the comfort of the cafe from the harsh, autumn city gale. She retrieved her order and sat herself down on the chair opposite of the younger girl.

"Good Morning, Ruby."

"Morning, Blake." The tired petite replied, silver eyes scarred by the eye-bags she refused to cover with make-up.

Blake took a mental note of the rasping nature of Ruby's normally ecstatic voice, rounded out by the cheerfulness compliments of the massive intake of baked concoctions galore. Though her kitty ears, as Yang affectionately referred them to as, subtly twitched in concern, Blake's face hadn't shifted from it's dreamy expression, left over from, well, Blake no longer wanted to think about that.

"You don't look so good."

However, it was Ruby who first raised the same point about Blake and her entranced, empty eyes, softened from their once sharp and acute feline forms.

"Rough night," Blake smirked. "I could say the same about you."

"Yang said she'd be home late. Waited until she would, 'cause she normally just gets drunk out of her mind and then comes home early at eleven. But she sent me a text message at one saying that she'd stay over at a friends house instead... I wanted to watch a movie with her too..."

"Do you know where my sis went?"

"She drunk called me. That's all I remember of her last night. Sorry." Blake answered the first part about the drunk calling truthfully but feared that Ruby might prod too much and find out where he sister actually is. She would need to keep the nature of their clandestine relationship darker than Ruby could possibly find, lest the latter freak out at how strange her older sister really was.

"I'm worried she probably got stuck with some really crazy guys..." Ruby finally whimpered.

"Well, she's smart like that, so I'm sure she figured something out," Blake replied, masking what cheeky grin the irony brought to her normally neutral face.

Blake closed her eyelids to let the vapor from her tea to loosen the muscles in her forehead as she inhaled the sweet aroma of ginko. Just as she was about to take a sip, though, she jolted at the sudden flash of light from the darkness of her closed eyes, slamming the cup of tea back onto the table. At first, she'd thought she'd gone insane as she eyed each and every other customer and found them staring in her direction. She soon realized, though, that they weren't staring at her, as Ruby's eyes were fixated, in horror, at something across the street.

"What was that?"

Both girls turned to face each other with the same question slipping out of their mouths, now agape. Blake's ears twitched again as they responded to the presence of the unfamiliar, as they always had, and alerted their host of the suspicious nature of whatever supernatural had happened. Sure, they lived in a world where often the truth seemed far too strange to accept as hallucinations and, hence, have reason to shove every last hunter and huntress into an asylum. But sudden glows of blinding light didn't exactly occur all that often, even if the cities were based around towering obelisks of light.

Without another word, the two girls leapt from their seats and drew their licensed weapons. Blake swept right as Ruby cleared the left side of the crowd until all that was left was the pattern of a butterfly's wings in the form of empty space on the street. The nearby law enforcement officers came rushing over to set an isolated staging area for the two girls, who promptly presented their Huntress I.D. Badges and kindly requested for crowd control. Once they deemed the nearby area safe for investigation, the officers gave a curt nod to the girls.

"Keep those people at bay," Blake commanded, "I'll go check it out."

"Why do you get to check it out?"

"Because you're better with people," the snarky kitty deadpanned.

"Oh that's real funny, Blake. Gee, thanks. Hey, I'm team leader you know, you should let me go!"

Blake ignored the string of complaints that came from the still short stacked girl and made her way to the source of glowing light. On another day, at another time, she would have the time to deal with the still immature young girl's antics but she valued the safety of her accepting citizens over the estrogen fueled whining of a close friend of hers. For now, the most important thing for her to do was to see what had happened, lest she come mere seconds to late to catch another accomplice of Torchwick's or otherwise.

A quick turn of the corner told Blake nothing and the subsequent once-over had all but convinced Blake to loosen up and disregard the flash as an environmental anomaly, much like the many others the city had experienced over the last few weeks. Feline instincts, however, never settled for an incomplete search for what potential mystery that lay in wait. Certainly, curiosity would guide the cat to the next corner and the next, until her ears twitched in annoyance instead of mental alertness. Try as she could, though, Blake could not ignore the itching urge to sweep the entire district that gnawed at her tired mind.

Just as she turned to leave, however, she made a double take when she noticed a black sigil pattern blazed across the concrete wall on the far right side of the intersection at which she stood. Now intrigued, Blake followed her directional feeling from her gut and scampered forward to the sigil and turned right. At eye level, she could not see anything, save for the wall of the next alley intersection. However, her eyes had travelled downwards and widened immediately as she jumped at the truly haunting shock from what she saw.

_No,_ Blake gasped, _no, this can't be._

"Uh, Ruby?"

"Yes!"

Blake stared at the collapsed figure before her. Clad in a stainless steel set of armor with an augmented version of a signature sword and shield lay a blonde, long-haired man with some stubble under his chin, unconscious. The scheme of the armor, shimmering under the near chrome exterior aesthetic and adorned with decorative carvings of noble royalty past, had matched the general thematics of one belonging to a key figure in the first Vytal war: A figure, unsurprisingly, that begun the famous bloodline of one her long lost comrades. There was no mistaking who this was but only what he had become.

"You'd better call Pyrrha. There's something she should see."


	2. Chapter 2

Hey guys,

I'm pleased to say that this is the first fic I've ever written a Chapter 2 for... ever. (No joke here, I've abandoned nearly every fic that I've written straight after the first chapter because, well... work :)

Anyway, enjoy the second chapter!

* * *

_Light!_

Jaune gasped for air as his eyes bolted open and his arm had extended forward into the blinding source of luminescent white that burned through his pupils and irritated his brain. When he had enough of staring into a blank nothingness, Jaune bent his arm by the elbow and shielded his vision from the irritating glow above him. A couple seconds later, his eyes adapted to the brightness of his room of confinement, only to see the blurry shadows that loomed over his body, malicious and ready. By means of reflex, Jaune sat up with a jolt and cocked his left arm back to throw disorienting punch at he who stood before him. His fist however, stopped short of it's movement forward at the sudden cry from beside him.

"Jaune, it's me!"

He angrily looked at the red-haired girl to his left who softly held his thrusted fist with her tender, cold hand. Burning sapphires focused on the fair-skinned hand that gently restrained his arm. Innate measurements of strength and resistance dictated that he could follow through and still cause a massive amount of damage but he felt irked when he realized that she'd purposefully allowed for such an action to occur. He hesitated and began to think that she meant no harm before slowly lowering his arm, her smile widening with every centimeter his fist dropped and unclenched. Eventually, his arms hung uselessly by his side and he simply stared straight into her welcoming gaze and blurted,

"Who are you?"

The red-haired lady took offense to his honesty, something he didn't quite understand at first but eventually reasoned as something unimportant and trivial. They stared at each other for a while more, he with half opened eyes of fatigued neutrality, she with open, lush green jewels.

"Jaune, don't you remember me?" The red haired woman's eyes looked ferocious in their intent, but hid a softness behind their soft glow, "it's Pyrrha!"

Confusion came easily to those who knew nothing but material knowledge and instincts, as did it to Jaune when he leaned backwards and away from the crazy young woman in front of him. She looked attractive, no, "attractive" would put her beauty to shame, she was magnificent. Had they met in different circumstances, he would've gone for a more gentle approach. One involving a mellow, but still charming, flirting he learned from... Well, he couldn't really remember.

"... Pyrrha?" He'd heard that somewhere before, too, that name. Somewhere.

"Yes, Jaune."

"Is that your name?" Confusion washed over his troubled, adrenaline fueled stream of consciousness. Who was this girl?

"Jaune, don't you recognize me?"

"Recognize?" Jaune didn't understand. "We've barely met."

"How could you say that?!" the red-haired girl threw her hands backwards as she leaned forward with teary green eyes and a frown so heartbreaking that even he had felt bad for his innocence. "Jaune, it's me Pyrrha, your teammate, your mentor! Don't you know who your princess is?"

"Princess?" Again, Jaune felt physically and emotionally confounded. What Princess? Royalty ended years ago!

The redhead did not respond and, instead, desperately shook her head in denial of... Something. He had an idea of what she felt so terrified about, one such scandalous idea that involved him. But why?

With the little time he spent awake, he'd run in circles around the labyrinth deep in his cranium from something so sinister. Sadly, the darkness that chased behind him with ravenous claws twitching at the sight of his juicy conscience grabbed his face, producing a harsh cringe on the blonde man's face followed by an immense, dull pain. Slowly, but surely, he felt his body struggle against it's firm grasp before giving up on struggling while his mind comfortably sunk back into nothingness.

How disappointing, he thought, that the world simply faded to dust in the hazily monochrome mist that enveloped his consciousness. How sweet the lassitude of leaving with not a care in the world.

* * *

"Jaune, Jaune!"

Pyrrha's shouts had grew nearly to desperate screams as she tried to rush forward to caress her long lost team leader. Before she could reach his limp body, however, Blake had struggled to keep her back, restraining the redhead's legs with her own and clamping Pyrrha's arms to her body by a pair of two strong arms.

"Pyrrha, please, just wait for a minute."

Like Jaune, Pyrrha raised a threatening fist but stopped immediately after she barely noticed the harsh, purple glint of amethyst earrings and. Instinctively, she forced her fist down back to her right and straightened her back with a small stomp of her feet. Saluting came naturally thereafter to whom she had almost pegged in her fit of rage.

"P-professor Goodwitch," Pyrrha stammered, taking two steps back in embarrassment.

In the near two years Pyrrha spent after her time at Beacon, she saw little of her favorite professor. Wise and calculating, Goodwitch always thought before she spoke and methodically ruminated on whatever problems she found. This deadly efficiency struck Pyrrha as the revered decisiveness of a leader. Yet, Goodwitch was one so taciturn that Pyrrha found such an acerbic nature disturbing, if not intimidating, to say the least. It was in this way that Pyrrha came to respect the critical woman, impeccably dressed in her formal shirt and pencil skirt with a majestic cape to top off the prime image of a exemplary huntress.

Thus, when Goodwitch had more or less politely asked Pyrrha to stop openly displaying her already obvious concern for her team leader, Pyrrha opened her mouth to respond, only to clamp her jaw shut and stand at attention to Goodwitch's command. Obedience, Pyrrha remembered, was the only way for her to show the due respect that her mentor deserved. After all, she didn't want her, of all critical people, to judge her undying loyalty to the once clumsiest student at Beacon.

"Neural scans indicate an small inactive segment near the hippocampus remains curiously inactive," Goodwitch reported, tossing a small segment of her gleaming locks back behind her ear. "It rose several concerns when we tried to fix that with some dust technology and regenerative imprinting. Cellular regeneration would prove too risky, and plus, his cells aren't dead, they just aren't working at optimal levels."

Scientific jargon always perplexed the oddly simple alpha girl. Pyrrha did manage to make some sense of what Goodwitch had rambled about in her heinously fast speech filled with clear pronunciations of latin terms, all of which elementary terms could easily replace. Regardless, in her new set of bronze tinted armor, complete with her more elegant chest-piece, battleskirt and boots, the gentle woman intently listened to her old teacher's elucidation, most of which had eluded her. Although, by the time the professor did finish her lengthy explanation of Jaune's medical condition, Pyrrha reached a dire conclusion.

"He doesn't remember anyone?"

"No," Goodwitch solemnly admitted with a quaint sigh, "we ran a couple of tests before you got here, and he couldn't. It's strange, given that he can understand things that we show him. He knows what objects, facts and subjective truths are. Obviously, he knows how to speak too. But for some reason, he just doesn't recognize anyone. Oh, and there are small bits and pieces of things that he doesn't know for some reason or another, so we should still expect some confusion when we introduce him to Vale."

"Are you sure?" Pyrrha betrayed a deep anxiety in her tenuous whisper that came drifting from a quivering set of lips.

"We should be thankful that Blake found him in time," the wise, but still stunningly beautiful, master huntress claimed. "Judging from the aura tabulations that the medical officers gave us, any longer and we might have found a Jaune barely able to so much as open his eyes."

Goodwitch did not answer the question, evidently, but her sudden heightened concern for a student she never liked felt somewhat unfamiliar to Pyrrha. Perhaps, she had missed the part where the huntress actually did care for people she took under her wing, or Pyrrha just misunderstood her form of attention and concern for something else. After all, most of the other faculty at Beacon demonstrated a rather exemplary protective behaviours towards their students, even after they have all graduated. At this point, Pyrrha was not longer sure whether Goodwitch was more concerned about her or about Jaune... Though it was most likely her.

"I've spoken with Professor Ozpin already, and he has agreed to take Jaune through an intensive rehabilitation program that just might bring everything back. Given his current state though, Mister Arc probably won't be able to do much while he remains oblivious to us and modern affairs. Hence, for the next month or two, we'll need to allow him some time to familiarize himself with us, become accustom to the city of Vale, you know. We're afraid that the sudden influx of all this information might prove too much for him to handle. Minds fresh out of trauma are fragile, at most."

Pyrrha did not listen to the rest of Goodwitch's ramblings and perked up at how there was hope for him to remember her. Apart from that, she felt grateful for having an herself with him. She could spend some time with him, too. Good.

"Until then, though," Professor Goodwitch wrote a couple of things down on her tablet before looking up, the frame of her glasses carefully clutched between the gentle grasp of her index finger and thumb, with a mischievous grin. "I hope you don't mind if the prodigal son stays with you."

Pyrrha gave a blatant look of surprise and confusion, until it dawned on her that Ren was right in stating that it was pretty easy to understand what she had in mind. Who was she trying to fool? She smirked at her old professor, who carelessly grinned in return, so much as winking at her to insinuate something a little more... scandalous.

"It would be my pleasure, Miss Goodwitch."

* * *

Despite how the professor had insisted that she return home and come back to the hospital once notified, Pyrrha stayed beside Jaune's bunk the entire time, with the permission of Headmaster Ozpin, who had more or less suggested that he knew everything about them too.

In the time she spent nervously rubbing her hands together and praying that he would come to soon, several people had come and went. Ruby and Blake sauntered over after their debrief to take a look at the sleeping beauty, whose smile brought a mirror image to their faces. Cardin came to pay his respects from the Beacon Medical School with a small compliment along the lines of not knowing how impressive Jaune had become. Even Weiss managed to find some time out of her busy schedule to so much as take a small peak at the boy who once courted her with a small frown. Pyrrha managed to greet them all with a fairly neutral way, but inside, she was just as terrified as she was when she got separated from him during a trip to Forever Fall again in her sophomore year.

Turned out, Jaune woke a full eight hours later in the day to Pyrrha's gentle humming of bossa nova tunes with a small groan. Instead of a full frontal approach, Pyrrha decided to take a less... appalling route by gently greeting him.

"Hello."

He groaned again, holding another arm over the top of his forehead as his eyes slowly forced themselves open. Once had blinked several times, a look of suspicion washed over his serene expression. Pyrrha smiled gently towards him and waited for him to speak before allowing herself to begin.

"You again," he said, with a cocked brow, no less.

"Yes, me again..."

"Pyrrha, right?" Jaune wrinkled his nose and scratched the back of his head.

"Yes, how did you know?"

"It's kind of hard to forget the name of someone who introduces herself by yelling at you." She could tell that Jaune felt some unease in his frankness. He always loved to sugar-coat things to strangers, after all.

"Ah, yes," she chuckled. "I'm afraid you'll have to forgive me for that. I hope you don't mind if we start again. This time, hopefully, a little more normal. My name's Pyrrha, Pyrrha Nikos."

"Jaune Arc," he replied. "Nice to meet you Miss Nikos."

"Please, call me Pyrrha." The pleasant sound of his addressing her so formally brought a slight flourish of pink to her cheeks.

"Where am I?" Of course he would ask the waking man's question.

"You're in Vale central hospital, in an intensive care unit. We found you unconscious in an alleyway with the wounds that you might be feeling some stinging at... Needless to say, I-" Pyrrha paused for a moment before continuing, "we were surprised to see you in the armor that you had and the state that you've returned."

She noticed Jaune's physical recoil at the part where she mentioned Vale city and took it as an indication that he didn't know where he was either. Other than that small hiccup however, Jaune seemed to soak everything that she had said with relative ease as he slowly nodded his head. Silence dominated the room soon after she finished and allowed him some time to reflect upon all the she lectured on. He appeared to have understood so well that, sometimes, Pyrrha wondered why she didn't start teaching full time to begin with. Until he rose a peculiar question.

"How long since I left?"

"Nearly two years," Pyrrha softened her muscles and let her lips drop to a small frown. "A long time for the people that knew you... Including myself."

"My apologies if I made you all worry. But I'm afraid I don't really know to whom you refer... I can't seem to remember anyone."

"It's quite alright, Jaune. I'll take you to meet them again some time. For now, though, because you don't exactly have a place to stay, the Adjutants at Beacon have arranged for me to host you for a month or two. I hope you don't mind that."

"No, not at all. So long as I don't really intrude on something. Not that I'm insinuating anything, of course, but you know what I mean."

_There it goes_, she told herself, _his unbearably sweet indecision and irresistible soft voice. _Her heart cooed at the last of his words and she leaned forward to compensate for the soreness in her developed chest. Nonetheless, she patiently waited for him to get a grip on his senses as he walked over to the bathroom to change. The nurses and doctors asked that she patiently wait for him in the lobby, where she found him again, now clad in the same set of clothing and armor they supposedly found them in. He readily recognized her once free from the care of the hospital and jovially strolled his way over to leave with her. They both had enough to the stupid ICU, anyways.

Fifteen minutes and an awkward car ride later, Pyrrha guided the fully armored Jaune to her apartment door. She fumbled around her purse for her keys and thoughtlessly dropped them on the entrance carpet, only to have Jaune pick them up and unlock the door for her. Flustered, she whimpered an apology and chuckled as he gestured for her to enter the abode first. Careful not to question the air of misplaced hospitality, Pyrrha rushed forwards to avoid messing up any further.

"Well, here it is," Pyrrha turned on the lights and placed both of her hands along her hips with a rather immense pride of her residential establishment. "It's not much, if you don't mind."

"No, not at all," Jaune replied, smiling as he shuffled his way in.

He had steps more firm than she remembered and a voice far more masculine than she dreamt of in her sleep. The thought of his present image's exceeding her expectations brought a tinge of red on her face.

"H-here," she held out a set of footsies pajamas that once belonged to him with her two hands, face turned to the left to avoid soul-crushing eye contact. "These were yours from some time ago. You can take the bed if you want."

"I can sleep on the couch, just fine, thank you." Jaune graciously accepted the pajamas and smiled.

She blushed at the innocently appreciative grin of his, imagining how his old set of footsies would stretch across his larger physique. Muscles, she thought, would show their luscious curves around the corners where his joints were. Such lasciviousness earned herself a mental slap. Drooling at men wasn't something she should do. Yet, in the case of someone she barely considered a man long time before, her mind started slobbering.

Shameful.

"Y-you don't have to sleep on the couch!" Pyrrha rushed, holding out two open hands to illustrate her panic. "I mean, we could... You know... Share.."

A lesser man would not reject her offer and jump at the chance of her kindness to at least cross off something from their bucket list. Jaune, however, cocked a brow and his charming grin tilted suit, either in wonder of what Pyrrha had just blurted without second thought or in amusement of how she reacted. Pyrrha would not know though, more important things, such as defusing what explosive situation she put herself into, took precedent over Jaune's ambiguous psychological faculties.

"T-that is... If you want to..."

If the added encouragement wasn't enough for Jaune to take the first step in helping Pyrrha realize what she had dreamt of for a year, Pyrrha wished not to impose upon him any sort of her wishful thinking. Clearly, she had dceived herself, in that sense. Who did she try to fool? There stood a man she recognized as one so benevolent and filled with gentle compassion who could not remember a thing of their past. Who could tell if he'd ever return? She almost let a small breathless sigh escape the gaps of her perfectly white teeth but disguised it as an uncomfortable cough. Discouraged, yes, but Pyrrha still felt as if it was all worth a good shot.

"Thanks," Jaune finally said. "But I'm sure sharing a bed with a stranger might not feel so comfortable. I appreciate the offer though..."

Slight melancholy washed over the spirits of the red-haired beauty as she recalled that the Jaune that stood plain and square in front of her could not recollect a single fragment of his past. For all she could care, he even might not be the same as the one she knew from at least a year ago.

"Are you hungry?" Pyrrha asked. "I can go get us some food if you want."

"Up to you."

The polar girl had noticed that Jaune preoccupied himself with exploring his new abode, leaning to one side and bending his waist to scrutinize nearly every peculiar object he came across. Not unexpected of course, a hunter always familiarized himself with his surroundings before allowing the feeling of safety. In fact, his very act of curiously inspecting the corners and rooms of her humble, but wonderfully designed, residence revealed that one of Jaune's conditioned instincts still glimmered deep in the abyss of his dim mind. Pyrrha felt glad that, and even more that he hadn't pointed out to everything and asked her what they stood for. His memory, hopefully, hadn't regressed that far, she thought.

Eventually, his small, but firm, steps had made their way to the small ledge above the fireplace. Atop the marble that jut out from the wall sat intricately framed photographs of days past. Reflexes commanded her steps as she lunged forward in a futile attempt to hide them from him. Once aware of her useless act, she simply willed herself to stay still and breathe normally. The least she could do to hide things now, was to wave them off, despite their obvious prominence in her life.

"Don't mind the photographs," Pyrrha scratched the back of her head in the space just below the stem of her ponytail. "I try to decorate the apartment with them to make it seem less boring, but, well, I don't really have too many of them."

Again, Pyrrha reasoned that the photos had nothing out of the ordinary. Some that she hadn't looked at in a while brought a small, evanescent smile to her face. But all of them had one thing in common: He was in them.

From the perspective of a complete stranger, one would've thought Pyrrha weird for her petty obsession over the maudlin frown or weak expression of surprise and happiness of the Blonde boy that always stood to her right. Tracing a line from her eyes revealed that, even at the moment of the photograph, she'd paid more attention to him than to the camera, save for the last one where she smiled straight ahead at Jaune, who took the graceful photo of her in her beachwear: A satin dress over a rather attractive bikini. Yes, she remembered that day and how her top fell off in the middle of a volleyball tournament from saving the ball. She won, of course, but Jaune had quickly stopped his torrential nose bleed and ushered her away with a towel that protected her heavenly bosom... It was a nice day, could've been better, but it was still nice.

Of all the photos she would've expected him to look at though, Pyrrha found Jaune staring at a picture of himself two years ago with Pyrrha, dressed in a matching set of majestic formal wear for their graduation prom night. She could see his gaze soften as he put a hand on the silver frame, decorated with neat flourishes of blossoms and a large heart on the top. Her hopes had elevated when she noticed a small moment of nostalgia and understanding wash over his squint as his lips curved upwards. But, ultimately, she restrained herself to the basis that she could not expect so much from he who had arrived not more than twenty-four hours ago.

"Is this me?"

"Yes," Pyrrha bashfully admitted, skipping her way over to stand next to him.

"Huh," Jaune's eyes seemed to narrow as he scanned the photograph, intent on learning the significance behind the occasion and why, of all things, he wore a such fanciful clothing with a girl who was clearly born to wear those clothes. "You look beautiful in that dress, by the way... If I haven't said that already."

"T-Thanks."

"Will I get to see you in it again?"

"Why would you want to see me in that dress? I probably hardly fit in that thing anymore..." Pyrrha hid the fact that she'd worn that dress to formal occasions every once in awhile from him, given that she'd done so with the thought of imagining him by her side.

"Pictures are not so good as the image is in real life," Jaune recited with closed eyes and a scholarly aura around his still body. "I don't know where I learned that, but I believe that this holds true with everything. Seeing something is worth more than reading of the same thing a million times."

Pyrrha knew exactly where Jaune came from with this quotation of Ren's dissertation on art and life, published as "The Zen of Contemporary Pursuits." How Jaune managed to read that, or when for that matter, Pyrrha had yet to figure out, but she accepted his reasoning and softened her nervous features. How funny that she could remember what Ren had written during his spare time in meditation. Furthermore, how interesting that he could remember that but not her. Surely, he did not value literature over her existence? Or did her existence, as of late, not seem so remarkable?

Over the last few years, many of her contemporaries accomplished things she'd never imagined their doing. They all had small things going around, just as Pyrrha had taken her life to teaching part-time at the conservatory. But they all made headlines or figured some wonderful thing out that would change the world. If not any of those, then their work had definitely caught the attention of the general public. Ren's books, Ruby's teachings, Weiss' new executive role, Blake's diplomatic position and hell, even Cardin's recent discoveries and advances in medical technology, all of these things made their way to impress others. Clearly, they, in turn, had received much acclaim as a result.

Upon reflection, what had she done? Surely, as of the present moment, she sat comfortably in her living room sofa, scrolling through the channels again, desperately finding ways to take her mind off of the gentleman who was probably butt naked in the next room. Perhaps she had done this daily routine so often that she'd forgotten about how to break from quotidian activities. Hell, even Blake changed her days through petty interactions and small risks that she calmly took left and right. For Pyrrha however, following her set schedule seemed like the only way to keep herself from shutting down. She couldn't stop thinking about it either, now that the thought had risen. But how could she?

_Funny how you hadn't thought of this when you were still in school, _She berated herself, and that was enough to sedate her aggrandizing line of thought.

"Oh," came his neutral response. Jaune tilted his head and scrutinized the photo with a low cadence hymn before shrugging and moving onto the bathroom. "I hope you don't mind if I change my bandages first. Miss Goodwitch told me I should probably switch out the dressing and ointment at around this hour."

"O-of course, but, do tell, what would you like to eat?"

"Whatever it is that you want," Jaune unfastened the clamps that held his armor to the various protected parts of his body, revealing a slim, firm and muscular figure hidden beneath a black hoodie and dark denims. "You probably have a better idea of what's good to eat around here. Hey, I mean, I just got here."

Pyrrha playfully glared at him for a second with eyes of genuine intrigue before she left Jaune to tend to his abdominal injuries. Minutes later, she finally decided on ordering something simple that they could easily share between them: A small meal they always had whenever they felt too lazy to walk to the Beacon Dining Hall on those rainy Saturday afternoons called pizza. Conveniently fast and decently delicious, pizza provided Pyrrha with a solution to wrecking her mind over deducing what she believed Jaune would have liked to eat. That could wait for another time when stopping herself from pretending that she was in a drama didn't take priority.

When the pizza arrived, Pyrrha took note of Jaune's ill satisfied appetite. He had little taste for food, contrary to what he previously was like. He ate a piece or two of the gigantic pizza in front of them, of course, but after the second one, he politely wiped his mouth and sniffled. Old habits never left the subconscious cycles of the human mind, so said one of Wukong's medical papers one time. After the monkey faunus had his share of courting Blake, he went off to study the mind and the reasons behind his inexplicably primal actions. It made sense, given that Sun always liked playing tricks on people. Yet, thanks to that, some of what Pyrrha now saw as an amnesiac Jaune cluelessly changing his bandages stretched across his increasingly attractive body came more easily to her.

"You're not hungry?" Pyrrha asked, working away at the string of cheese between the slice of pizza in her hand and her lips, cheeks stuffed with her bite that muffled her voice. She blushed again when she realize that she just spoke with her mouth full and promptly raised her free hand to cover her chewing.

"Not really, no. Getting pumped full of intravenous fluids does get you kind of stuffed, you know." He scratched the back of his head apologetically and let a small chuckle escape his sealed lips.

Pyrrha chuckled with a mouth stuffed with the vegetarian toppings and well baked wheat of the pizza in front of them. She didn't notice it at first, but she somehow felt a trickle of her drool slowly trail its way down the corner of her lips and onto her chin. Many girls back in Mythral had once told her. No, Pyrrha would not take interest in the arrogant men whose triumphant strides boasted the bravado in their cocky voices of authority: She preferred the simpler souls, a little bumbling yes, but ultimately caring and compassionate. Such was the man who sat across from her at the dining counter.

In time, Pyrrha managed to eat a couple more slices of the pizza and successfully convinced a rather reluctant Jaune to have a little more to eat, lest he go hungry in the middle of the night and couldn't find food. He assured that he wouldn't, of course, and managed to crack another joke. Where the hell did he get all this charm from? Maybe the extra two years away taught him a thing or two about attractive humor.

"We can watch a movie, if you want," Pyrrha offered, though she didn't exactly have a good film in mind.

He gave her a small nod in return to signify his unquestioning approval. It wasn't one of those obvious ones that anyone would take as a yes, just a small dip of the head that meant that either he did not feel strongly about her suggestion or he really didn't care. Either way, Pyrrha returned to frantically mashing the channel tuning button on the television's remote control to find something worthwhile, forcing her hopelessly romantic thoughts from her head all the while. What Jaune did as she kept herself busy did not matter, she just needed to keep her head from turning towards the small crack in the guest room door to peer at Jaune's exposed body. Her imagination would suffice.

Eventually, she came across a channel that broadcasted a TV series that she'd read and heard much about from the internet or the people around her, whenever she chose to be around. This show happened to be based off of one of Jaune's famously published stories written for the Vale times as a continuous subscriber special. Pyrrha remembered reading the very first drafts he had conjured and eyeing them with surprise. She hadn't known that he grew so adept and eloquent in his words at the time, and his writing came to her as a massive surprise.

The producers read his story and manuscript a couple months later, when Pyrrha started noticing the sudden dearth of messages from him and the non-existence of his media and profiles. They tried to contact him, too, about collaborating on a joint show that would showcase his writing but, for obvious reasons, he did not respond. Once they had gone to his estate and gound him missing, they simply walked away and tweaked little details here and there, perverting the original version of Jaune's amazing love story... All to avoid violating the legal protection of his ingenuity for the sole purpose of producing a decent comedy series that would win a Vytal Walther Award.

Pyrrha would know, she was the one who answered their messages.

Regardless, she still managed to enjoy the show and laughed at the droll antics of the characters. Harems, she thought, always brought challenges, emotionally that is, to those involved in the playful love affair between youngsters. Pyrrha always wanted to be part of harem, but paused at the thought when she remembered the rather heated competition between her and Yang. At the time, they competed to see who could grasp Jaune's heart the most and she'd spent whole nights just plotting her next move, only to execute her plans with such terrible efficacy that she wondered if she ever made a plan to begin with. In the end, Pyrrha believed that she had won, of course. But, now, she felt uncertain. He did disappear for some time, after all.

With time, she came to rest her head on his shoulder, something she regretted once she had done so, but felt strangely at ease by his acquiescence: He did not budge, shuffle or shrug when her head had leaned it's weight onto his dense muscles. Jaune didn't move at all, and simply kept his eyes glued to the flickering hologram that showcased the comedic interaction between two unwitting roommates and lovers all the same. From where she lay, she couldn't help but notice the small amount of stubble he grew under his chin. Noticeable, yes, but it gave off an aura of seriousness and maturity to his already tenor voice. Her Jaune had grown up, no doubt.

A shame, though, that she couldn't watch him grow and he just had to disappear once her feelings raged out of control and came crashing down like the recent Scarlet Meteorite phenomena. It would've been nice to see even a small fraction of the time he had spent away, observe what world he lived in while she still wallowed around in the comfort of her routine, settled single life. What kind of adventures did he embark on? What lives did he save? Pyrrha wanted to know everything and then remembered that he could tell of none.

What would people do if they saw him? Would they recognize him as the missing writer and celebrity TV guest? Pyrrha went on to picture the tantalizing views of attraction from other females as they would walk down the street together, feeling what obligation to suffer from the jealousy of her contemporaries. What would those producers have to answer for when they saw him, at last? What would the press have to say about his two year hiatus and anonymity? So many questions made their way to her mind as she focused on what traumatizing exposure Jaune might suffer from in the coming weeks. She cared for him that much, and if her concern did not testify enough, then surely her carnal desires would.

Then, she wandered her way to fantasizing how he would slowly come to love her again, if he ever did to begin with: The slow easiness in his waking, the consistent and rhythmic clicking of the keyboard as he wrote another story or even the soft moans she would have from enjoying the exotic pleasure of his embrace. For one so guilty of her unchecked eidolon as she, Pyrrha blushed and flushed at her rapturous conclusions to the story of reuniting with the one man whom her respect for had slowly matured into admiration. Whether his innate attractiveness had proved a ploy or not, Pyrrha decided that she would follow this boy to the apex of Mount Frostholm if he wanted to go and she would not object. In easier, more readily accessible words, Pyrrha loved him.

No. She _craved _him.

Pictures, whole masterpieces intricately crafted by the brush and canvas of her blank mind, came forth in a slideshow that showcased the best of stories she made of reuniting with him. This slow imagination drew a close line to reverie as her mind slowly crossed the border to less conscious territory. Slowly, the warmth from his shoulder seemed to ebb and flow, enticing her to lay an arm around her human cushion and slowly wrap around the rest of his arm. Delicate fingers traced the vertical stripes around his one piece footsie as tin his magnificent, lavender scent. Oh, how she'd dreamt of that smell in the many nights she spent tossing around in her bed!

"But, that's the whole point of dreaming," Blake nervously commented one time when Pyrrha had shared her dreams of Jaune with the other girls."One thinks of the images and fantasies that he or she conjures in their waking moments, then relive what they may not achieve in their sleep. Such is one of many curses of mankind."

If dreaming, to Blake, was a curse, what did that say about dreams that came true? Jaune had returned. She could tell herself the same thing over and over again. Jaune came back! Jaune finally decided to come home! Jaune came back to her! There were countless ways for her to express the same euphoria she experienced in proclaiming a simple fact that defied Blake's definition of Pyrrha's hopes. Ebullience, in turn, transformed into a dreamy equanimity and fatigue started to drift over Pyrrha herself just as the show had gone slightly quieter to accomplish the effect of a more sentimentally sensitive scene.

Soon, Pyrrha frolicked to her realm of fantasy, where Jaune came back to fanfare and her tight embrace, while the still clueless Jaune calmly carried her back to her bed, set her under the blankets and ran a warm hand through her fiery hair that pulsated with the strength of her swelling heart.

Meanwhile, in the massive bed of the mysterious, resident kitten ninja, another blonde finally dreamt of Jaune for the first time in around two years.

* * *

Phew, there we go.

I will warn you that Chapter three won't take us any further in the plot and will read slightly shorter than these first two... I've already written it, see, 'cause I had a very magnificent idea when I saw the works of amipiai on his (her?) tumblr. Go check it out!


	3. Chapter 3

Hey guys,

THIRD CHAPTER, OH MY GOD

OH MY GOD

OHH MAA GODD

AOOO MAAAAA GAWWWDDDDDD.

Okay... Enough of imitating Ruby's hyper-activeness

I apologize for several things here (Pyrrha's tendencies are rubbing off on me):

1) A couple of nights ago, I pressed the save button without realizing that a couple of days had passed since I last saved/logged in. so I lost most of the story progress I intended to publish, so yikes. What was supposed to come out on a Monday came running by today. Half of the story had gone missing then, so I practically re-wrote this damned thing that was supposed to come out earlier. I don't have everything that I originally wrote, sorry. But I tried my best to put most of what I remember writing in here.

2) We didn't really get anywhere with the last chapter. We won't really get too far with this one either. I want to flesh out the universe and circumstance of Jaune a little more.

3)I lied when I said the amipai content was in this chapter! Stupid me, it's in the next one.

Anyways, welcome back from Thanksgiving and enjoy the chapter.

* * *

_Five Years Ago_

"That was a good save, Jaune!" Ruby chimed in her strangely arousing bikini that her sister picked out for her.

Jaune kept to himself as he started putting more things onto the grill in front of him. Rushing to ensure the privacy of his friend when she needed it most in the form of a large towel and an extra set of clothes was nothing when one compared such a frivolous act to the combat they often saw. Strange, though, how one would feel more afraid by showing their body than by the horrors of fighting creatures unknown and savage.

"That was nothing," Jaune finally responded, eyebrows furrowing a bit as the smoke rose into his sensitive nostrils. "Just wanted help her out."

"Getting territorial, I see," a lascivious Yang came strolling from behind, clasping her hands in front of his waist, just above his swim trunks' strings. "Stopping other people from eyeing your woman."

"She's a lady," shaking his waist did nothing to free himself from her sensual grasp, hands now trailing lower towards a rather dangerous area of his. "And she's our lady. We're a team of friends, remember."

"Oh? And you are our fearless leader?"

"Get off of me..." Jaune finally quivered, feeling the full extent of distracting contact with sweat and the flesh of a foreign entity. "Please."

"I just wanted to give you a hug!" Amethyst eyes widened to a soft glance and a pout came suit on the lips of the subject. Jaune remained cool and calm, though, casually flipping the barbecue sticks with his dextrous hands.

"I want a hug too!"

Ruby's silver eyes burned deep into the blue open sea of Jaune's vastly blank mind, pixie grin demanding all that Yang had just offered in the same gesture of affection. Instinctively, JNPR's team leader violently shook his head and returned his attention to the almost burnt vegetable kebabs on the grill. God help him if he screwed up Blake's fish.

"C'mon, just one hug!" Ruby extended her arms out to receive the warmth that was Jaune. Deep in the corner of their eyes was a Pyrrha who'd suddenly froze in place, jealous eyes hidden behind a pair of stylish shades, clad in Jaune's extra T-shirt that seemed to massage her womanly bosom.

"I'm no good at hugs."

"Jaune, do you think you're good at anything?" Yang curiously demanded, showcasing her racks as the boys around them oggled at her form. When compared with hers, Jaune's slim body seemed to pale in comparison.

"Well..." Jaune scratched his head, hastily turning the chunks of shrimp and beef on his sturdy grill. "I knit."

Just as Jaune turned the sticks of fish and sausages, carefully impaled such that they would stick as per Blake's instruction, most of his peers sat on the massive beach blanket to his right and stared at him.

"... In all seriousness, you do the most feminine things." Ren snarked.

"That's alright! Maybe Jaune just likes doing certain things that seem fun to him!"

"No you moron, he's a man, and men have to do more masculine activities lest we do the job for those useless fools."

"I don't see a problem with it," Blake peeped from her behind her hardcover book in an alluring one piece under the shade of the nearby palm tree. "I respect men who have a taste for culinary arts. Oh, and put some lemon on the salmon, please."

"Finally found something worth admiring in you, you casanova wannabe." Yang playfully punched him in the arm but retracted a swelling fist as Jaune shielded himself with his aura out of sheer reflex.

"Thanks Yang, really helped my ego... A wannabe huh..."

"I didn't mean it that way!" The resident hothead tried to land another cross when she remembered the slightly cringe-worthy pain she suffered the last time she tried to pull that off on him.

By the time the two blondes settled their differences, most of the scallion infused pork sticks, as well as several pepper stacked beef satays and lemon saturated fish, had long since gotten small burns to their outermost layers, adding a crisp from the fire of the grill's pit. With a great sigh, Jaune transferred his neglected creations to a massive plate for his friends to consume. Yet he, the man who conjured these things held neither joy nor excitement.

Odd, then, for him to remain part of this band of misfits! The three main Genki girls, two probably from congenital reasons, two unblinking stoics, a stuck up princess and the only lady he could properly respect. Upon reflection, Jaune couldn't help but wonder how lucky he must have been to have met these individuals in their splendor. By chance, he happened upon the first silver eyed idealist in the outskirts of Beacon in his first days. His fortunes grew steady after a fateful encounter with the redhead in the forrest, where she'd pinned him to a tree with her spear and watched him helplessly dangle from his durable hoodie. He couldn't list them all immediately, but he understood the general idea: A combination of fate and luck managed to pair him with the most baffling, but ultimately amicable, of companions.

He was just happy, and nothing else seemed to matter.

* * *

The only thing other than her sense of anticipation that woke Pyrrha up with a smile on her face was the drifting scent of delicious food.

And boy did the air smell saturated with it.

Slowly, Pyrrha allowed her eyes to bat a couple of times before opening, her nose picking up on the trail of the odor that came through her bedroom door. She almost called out to Jaune, whom she'd assumed was the only other person in the house, as she shuffled and lumbered her way over to the doorway. Once close enough to the closed door, she heard sizzling coming from the other room and gasped.

_Could it be?_

In an instant, her limbs energized and she flexed her muscles, tensing as she almost slammed her head to the door to listen more intently before backing off in disbelief. Seconds flew by before she dared to peek through a tiny crack she managed to create betweeen the frame and the door itself, only to see a trace of a pair of dark denims and a black shirt and what looked like... Pink? She spun back behind the wall and slowed her bare panting to deep inhalations of fear.

_No, it couldn't._

Minutes of deliberation later, Pyrrha shook her head and smirked. Unless he somehow managed to remember something about her (please do, she hoped), there was no way on earth that he would be cooking whatshe thought he would: The smell of olive oil, the scrumptious aroma of mixed vegetables and eggs and what seemed to be... Whipped cream with strawberries? The strawberries had her drooling from what had already made it's way down her chin while she slept. It was an embarassing habit, for sure, but she could do little to control what happened while she was not conscious.

_Could it?_

"Good morning."

Pyrrha froze at his voice and realized that she'd been caught by his uncannily acute senses. Biting her lip, she went over to her closet to change into a more modest set of clothing that didn't show too much of herself through the translucent gown she slept in. She settled for a tank top and slacks after a quick browse through her large inventory of attire before stealthily strolling out the door, though chances were that her companion had long since noticed her presence. Sneaking got her close enough to him though, as she'd barely made it to the heightened stools of her dining area before his ears subtly flexed to the sound of her one clumsily loud footstep.

"Jaune," Pyrrha leaned over the kitchen counter with her new set of clothing on. "What are you doing so early in the morning?"

"Cooking," Jaune turned his head to the right from the simmering frying pan in front of him that dexterously handled with much grace. "A small ways along the road to paying you back for letting me stay here."

At first, Pyrrha eyed him incredulously and chuckled. Even the old Jaune had a large sense of gratitude in him. She guessed that some temperaments could not disappear even if he suffered from. Deep down, maybe he was still the same old Jaune she knew: Caring, Hospitable, Gregarious, Bumbling... The list could go on and she could dreamily sigh at everything that made her squirm. How could she not have this stubborn belief in something so absurd ready at the faintest sign of his return? She'd been expecting him, after all.

Many, of the few that knew her, took note of how she would always order two drinks or have one extra seat, as if she had expected Jaune to just pop up anywhere. Whether at happy hour with Blake and Yang, or out for a fancy dinner with Weiss and Ren, Pyrrha always ushered the caterer to leave something extra just in case. When asked why, she replied with an explanation that it was a new way for her to commemorate the fallen, a means to remind people and herself of everyone that came and went. But in the end, even she could not deny her attachment to the once clumsy and bewildered young man.

"Oh," Jaune added, adding what looked like mushrooms to the smoking mix on his pan, "I hope you don't mind if used some of the food in your fridge... Didn't want to trouble you for a trip to the market..."

Well, Pyrrha thought, even if he did apologize, he did still use the massive stockpile of food she had in her gigantic fridge. No amount of apologies would refresh the stockpile other than a currently unnecessary trip to the grocers.

"Don't be silly," Pyrrha smiled. "You're always welcome."

Inviting as her response sounded, Jaune simply smiled, cocked his head slightly to the right and extended his tongue as he carefully shook the pan without spilling any of the contents. Then, skillfully, he managed to swoop his magnificent creations onto several plates taken from the top cupboard. Pyrrha took a mental note of his strangely strong orientation of her house. She hadn't told him of where the plates were, unless he happened to remember what had happened in the first few days before he disappeared...Did he?

"Please,' Jaune stood steadfast and straight with a pink apron over his footsies, gesturing to the dining counter across from the stove he just turned off where the stools were. "Have a seat."

Foreign as being referred to as the guest in her own house, Pyrrha politely obeyed without a moment's worth of hesitation, pulling a stool out and sitting on it before brushing a stray strand of hair from her face, still void of her normal application of make-up but beautiful nonetheless. Without the eyeshadow and mascara, Pyrrha looked slightly more childish with her smooth eyebrows and lids that created a sharper contrast of her green eyes. Almost no one had ever seen her like this, let alone any boy for that matter. She didn't think that Jaune ever saw her at anything less than the full extent of two beauty appliances and her earrings.

"Orange juice, Vegetarian Eggs Benedict and Strawberry Crêpes," Jaune monotonously announced as he gestured to each dish, respectively. "Hope it's not too bad."

Initially skeptical, Pyrrha skeptically poked at the crêpe and eggs benedict and squinted to focus her vision on how absurdly perfect each dish looked with the contemporary trail of vapor that entranced her olfactory system. Emeralds rose and burned deep into the Sapphires across from them a message of trust and faith, a willingness to put a life on the line to endure the mysteries that sat atop porcelain dishes.

_It really could be_.

Within milliseconds of bravely wharfing down a large forkful of the crepe, Pyrrha's eyes widened and she carelessly dropped her fork onto the floor as her hands rushed to cover her mouth.

"Jaune, are you kidding me? This is amazing! How do you know how to do this?"

"I'm actually not so sure myself. I just woke up, and felt like cooking something, you know. Figured Strawberries would be a good pick."

Then and there, just as Pyrrha chomped on another piece of her scrumptious strawberry crêpe, an idea flickered and blazed to the forefront of her mind. What if the Jaune she knew was sleeping underneath the husk that is the Jaune standing in front of her in a bunny embellished pink apron? What if, by some miracle, he was still alive and that there was something missing that kept him from coming back? If that wasn't the case, how could he have known what she liked to eat?

"How'd you know that I like strawberries?"

"It was a guess. Besides, it would explain why half of your fridge is stuffed full of them... Had to find a way to consume them.. They aren't always good frozen, you know."

Pyrrha had her hopes a little too high, perhaps, and flashed a quick smile before silently continuing her journey to nourishing satisfaction. Jaune elected to join her after he'd finished washing the apparatus he'd used and, still, didn't eat as much as Pyrrha remembered he would. They sat in a comfortable silence, one that a housewife would with her husband in the early morning as he read the papers and she hymned a tune whilst washing the dishes. What Pyrrha would give to have such a stable lifestyle with the man that she loved.

One of the many dramas people had based off of Jaune's writing came one of a peculiar couple, both troubled by their involvement with the White Fang only to settle their differences and grumpy looks to finally enjoy a mutual quietism. Circumstances ranged from awkwardly hiding their identities from their co-workers to suddenly tender moments with one another, each equally clueless as to how they might handle trusting the other. To put her memory into context, Pyrrha didn't really know what to expect from spending time with someone who either acted or truly was completely oblivious of her existence through some means. One day, he could be all charming and innocent, the next maybe more forceful and determined. One thing for sure though: If Pyrrha played the role of the female protagonist of the show, she had to make them do one thing.

They needed to get out of the house before she locked both of them in for more wickedly delectable atrocities.

"We've got a couple of days before we really start bringing you into the world again," Pyrrha cleverly mused, looking at the clock in the corner of the dining counter. "So what would you like to do today?"

"Depends," Jaune replied, flicking the lock on his newly issued Scroll PDA. "What would you have me do?"

A good deal of things ran through Pyrrha's imaginary notepad. She could always take him to the movies. But would that not seem as too much of an obvious advance? Grocery shopping would suit the moment then, perfectly harmless though rather pointless as a rightful tradeoff. One by one the many ideas that slithered their way into her focused mind had gotten crossed off by the red marking pen of disapproval until, finally, she realized that she could qualify any of her ideas as rather imposing.

Suddenly, she shivered from the vibration of her Scroll that she deposited into her hind shorts pocket earlier. Taking her flustered time, Pyrrha read the message she'd received from Ren with ease and grace before returning her Scroll back to it's rightful place and smiling.

"I know just the thing."

* * *

Yang experienced many wild things in her time. She'd done most of what she kept ushering Ruby not to do, in a fit of hypocritical protection of her sister's innocence and her own liberty.

But waking up two days after a wild night with a headache unmatched even by those induced by Professor Oobleck's lengthy lectures surely put her patience to the test.

Furthermore, her environment seemed to swivel around her as she sat upwards, working the tired muscles in her lower back and abdomen. What exactly did she do that cause so much pain? Her training never induced such agonizingly pleasant feelings. Nevertheless, Yang had grown accustomed to feeling horrible in the early mornings from nasty workouts or, God forbid, the horrible colds she suffered from evey once in a while and, of course, the daily drinking she indulged in.

Unless...

_Oh God_, Yang froze in her spot and cringed_, don't tell me... _

A quick rub along her thighs and a sniff of the room confirmed her theories. Yup, she totally did _it_. With whom, judging from the design of the room, she had done so must have been Blake. Why she remained mostly at ease and indifferent did not occur to her. Rather, the constant chirping of Yang's ringtone, a well-timed recording of Ruby's whining at her to get up, bothered her more as she crawled her way over to see what happened.

Turned out, just as she put the alarm on snooze and flung herself back into the grace that was Blake's bed, her phone rang, this time with Weiss more or less commanding her to answer the phone, another priceless recording. Sadly enough, the call had come from Weiss herself, the mistress of all that was insulting, derogatory and belittling. Yang swore she could've published a dictionary full of the Snow Princess' cursing schemes.

The lady who answered Yang's dreary greeting, however, sounded much softer and more gentle than the same person that Yang remembered in her half drunken dreams. Instead of the straightforward deprecation that came with a vigilantly grumpy voice, Weiss spoke to Yang with a motherly tone, something Yang hadn't thought the cold-hearted princess could ever accomplish.

"Are you alright?" Weiss started, almost careful not to scold her companion. "Blake told me that you'd drunk called her and she picked you up. Are you still in her house?"

"Oh boy, she did more than just pick me up."

"That's inappropriate."

"Hey, just being honest. No need to get worked up over it."

"I just trying to be nice! Give me a little credit!"

It took Yang several exchanges with Weiss to finally make her way around her sugar and ice personality that kept Ruby hooked. The latter always used such harsh phrases, more painful than Blake's blunt honesty, to convey all the things she did not agree with in a tone grumpier than Ruby as the poor petite girl first hit her period. Yang managed to witness Ruby's estrogen freak outs die down, of course, and now her sister only grew somewhat less energetic and more sleepy whenever that time of the month came along. Still, her little baby's uncharacteristic rage on that very first time was a sight to remember. The two of them, Snow White and Red Riding Hood, weren't so different after all. The other one probably just never stopped being grumpy.

Their online discussion went from one thing to the next: Yang started with how Weiss felt since her last party, the one in which she had unwittingly let a man inside of her (something Weiss still adamantly denied with flustered anxiety). Weiss, in turn, dragged Yang to the trap of guilt the latter had set up for herself by means of her inherent lack of any remote sense of responsibility. Neither would feel offended with everything that came up though. It was all in good faith and rather harmless, considering the frequency of insults and snide comments that came up whenever they so much as spoke to one another.

Eventually, Yang arrived on the matter of current events, offering her views on the recently established legislature of the Vytal Union. Weiss audibly expressed her shock with Yang's growing pools of knowledge shortly thereafter by means of irony, which Yang, unfortunately, did not pick up on easily. What with her getting stuck in her office for half of her waking life, though, it was hard for Weiss to learn of anything by any other means. She might never know it, but Weiss felt rather thankful to have a friend who was willing to call her up and receive calls in return to lighten the burdens of daily life.

Unless, of course, Weiss learned of something before Yang did. In which case, Yang's response wouldn't be as predictable, per say, as would Weiss' general appearance, even, might have suggested.

"Vomit Boy WHAT?!" She yelled into her PDA what Blake had politely placed at the bedside table.

"Geez, Yang," Weiss groaned, annoyed at both the massive stack of Schnee Company paperwork on her office desk and at Yang's unyieldingly boisterous nature. "I said that he's back."

The fiery blonde-haired girl took a minute to process the unbelievable. First a dream, now reality? Jesus, her life really was a fairytale wasn't it?

"Well then, let's go take him drinking~!"

"Not everyone's got time to mess around like that Yang," Weiss massaged her temple to stop her brow from twitching. "Besides, Jaune doesn't remember anything from before. Can you believe that? Not a single thing! That's just pathetic!"

"I know how that feels," Yang guiltily admitted through the slur of her hungover voice. "About some nights... At least. The best nights, I never forget."

"Gross," Weiss chuckled. "Had enough of your drunk antics. Thank God Ruby isn't like you."

"My baby sis?" Yang chimed. "Nah, if anything, intoxication would make her more hyper."

"Why do I see that happening?"

"Because it's her twenty first birthday soon, and we're planning her a huge birthday, remember?"

Weiss' brain and heart froze as she darted her newly refreshed and frantic eyes to the calendar to her right. She'd already flipped the pages to the month of october and there, circled in red in the fourth week with a small heart next to the number twenty seven read "Ruby's Birthday" on her gratuitous Schnee Company calendar. Frightened, Weiss frantically shuffled around in her sheet, nearly dropping the pen from her now limp fingers in desperation.

"Damn it! I haven't gotten her a present yet!"

"Weiss..." Yang groaned. "Did you forget about my sweet little sister's birthday?"

"Yes, I did, I'm still in the middle of doi-"

"You do know that we talked about this a week ago, right?"

"-ng all this stuff that has to prefect our dealings with Vale and the security of the na-"

"I also sent you a lot of messages... Okay, maybe not in the right mind but, still, I sent you one."

"I'M SORRY OKAY!" Weiss eventually yelled, drawing the attention of those who walked through the corridor and past her office door.

"You're too loud..." Yang croaked over the phone again, "it's giving me a headache."

"Oh shut it, as if you didn't have one already. Anyway, I've just had a lot of work lately, what with the expansion contract with the Vytal Union. I have to do all the legalizations for Beacon's and the city's support and collaboration. We're helping with the resources for security and military defense, big time. Not to be taken lightly, as you can tell."

"Uh huh," Yang chided. "You must be up to your sleeves, princess."

"Oh please, as if I wasn't born to do this. We are all meant to do great things, after all."

"Yeah, yeah, whatever you say girl... Well you keep busying on with your things," Yang flipped over to the other side Blake's unnaturally comfortable bed. "I'm going back to sleep."

"Yang, the boy you always teased and almost slept with just suddenly appeared out of nowhere with no recollection of his past after you stayed in bed for a full day drunk and hungover and you're telling me that YOU'RE GOING BACK TO BED?"

Yang's head recolied slightly from the digital device and winced at the sharp tone of the icy princess' harsh voice. With a nonchalance unparalleled even by Blake's natural aloof personality, she deadpanned,

"Yeah."

"YOU HEINOUS LITTLE PIECE OF-"

Though the first syllable of Weiss' coming string of derogatory terms came through, Yang did not stay awake to hear the rest and casually collapsed back onto the purple goosedown pillow's of Blake's King sized bed. When alcohol had time to do its marvellous work, it drove away most of what came to ravage Yang in her own little world. God help her if Ruby ever found out, but even more, God help her if she couldn't bear to live another day.

* * *

Blake returned from her office early that day. If she had any more work to do, she would've insisted on staying but, obviously, that was not the case.

Stretching her back like her faunus heritage, the mysterious kitten scampered on the large bed that Yang still slept on, pawing at her welcomed guest's face. She supposed that she could've done a litte licking just as an edge to see if Yang would stir or not, but decided to let her friend be. Though, maybe that would seem a little too excessive: Affectionate care knew only certain bounds, after all.

To busy herself as Yang kept snoozing away on the main bed of her apartment, Blake turned to her coset and began to try out all of her clothes again. She never liked to show off but she wanted to make sure that she kept the absolute essentials and not fall into the trap of keeping a thousand outfits without managing to wear them each day for 365 days in two and a half years. Dresses came to modest work clothes and then to combat uniforms.

And then, there was her cat suit.

Why would a kitty-cat redundantly have a cat suit? Part of it may have had to do with Yang's kinky mind and an idea for a birthday gift, but Blake would be lying if she said that she didn't see the logic in that. Besides, it hid her faunus heritage well enough through the alibi that she simply loved cats and often toyed with them. One halloween and a party's worth of wide eyed ogling later, not a single person questioned her ethnic status... Well, except for Yang, who'd basically tied her to a bed and teased her with a feather for hours straight in her wrong-minded schaudenfreude, though Blake actually enjoyed being tickled so vigorously. Not many people knew that she even had this dumb thing anyways.

The trade off to the outfit was how it made her feel. Her midriff would stand mostly exposed as the fur of the outfit irritating scratched against her skin until it felt somewhat... arousing. In all honesty, it became a proper way for her to remind herself of the feeling of "heat," as her species might have considered it. "Odd" didn't quite describe the first time she slipped the thing on during a Halloween gathering among teams JNPR and RWBY. It felt... Strangely normal and appropriate, almost as if she had enjoyed the way it forced itself upon her more sensitive parts. For reasons rather clear and understandable, Blake opted not to go Trick or Treating with Ruby and Nora. And for reasons she would rather not mention, she kept Yang up to... Satisfy herself.

So what should she do now, the hanger to the furry two piece outfit hanging by her finger? The costume managed to spin itself around as Blake carefully pawed at the fabric, trying to imagine how she would look in it now that she had grown just a little more. Head tilting became head scratching and cocked brows become grimaces of intense equivocation. She simply couldn't make a rational choice on her own behalf... Well, for the most part.

_What the hell_, Blake finally reasoned, throwing off everything but her underwear. _What do they care, it's what I am!_

When she finally got the whole costume on, she cupped her breasts with her two hands and felt how perfectly round they were and warmed them up until it felt too comfortable. Arching her back slightly, she turned her head to look at the alluring pose she struck in the full sized mirror besides her. Blake stuck her tongue out as her eyes trailed down her own figure. She hadn't noticed just how much her shape had chiseled into something of a model. But perhaps that was her ego getting to her head.

God, if anyone saw her in this ridiculously lascivious outfit, who knows what might happen.

Speaking of other people, Blake's head bolted upwards at the sound of her PDA's ringing. She didn't recognize the number but decided to answer anyways, something she never normally did.

"Hello Beautiful," she recognized his playful voice immediately.

"Sun," Blake feigned well-deserved surprise. "How are you?"

"Not bad, kitty cat," she shivered in delight at her affectionate nickname. "Heard that Jaune managed to find his way home."

_Straight to the point, I see_, Blake thought.

"And what of him?"

"Nah, nothing, I'm just hearing a lot about this stuff over here. Word spreads pretty quickly, as you can tell. I'll send him some homegrown bananas."

"I'm sure he'll appreciate your sympathies."

"Eh, can't tell if you're joking."

"Of course I'm not," Blake smiled, wondering if she'd lied. "What else is up? How's everything going on your end?"

"Oh, the faunus here aren't doing too bad, I guess. The White Fang's been less active lately as the relations continue to improve. I hear it's thanks to you that many people feel more at ease amongst animals like us. Or that might have had to do with one of Jaune's stories from way back when about a Faunus' journey to loving a royal. It was pretty cheesy and a lot of the kids liked it, some adults too. Hell, I'll admit that even I kind of liked it too. Gives you a sense of hope you know."

"I'm sure it does," Blake eyed the still unconscious Yang to her side and shifted her body such that she lay on her stomach, lifting her feet by her knees behind her as she purred. "Good to hear everything's going well over there."

"Yeah, it's not bad. So how are you? Holding up okay?"

"I'm alright," Blake admitted with a faint sigh as she rolled over to the left to lean onto Yang's warm body. "Jaune's return has caused quite a stir. Pyrrha practically went crazy over the fact that he's finally back in flesh and blood. A well deserved romance, if you ask me."

"Ha, remember when we were stalking them and wondering just when Pyrrha's self-control would go wild?"

"We agreed to never speak of that."

"Did we?"

"Yes."

"Oh... Well I thought it was pretty fun, sneaking around and being all mysterious about our outings. I enjoyed it! One of the many things you look forward to in a more mundane life, you know."

Blake shivered and purred at the thought of Sun's gentle petting of her well groomed hair, running his gentle fingers down the sensitive strands that caused her to unintentionally squeak. Intimacy was never her sort of thing, yet at that one point, in an attempt to observe intimacy, she had experienced it for the first time with someone of the opposite sex and mischievous intent. She enjoyed his teasing much, and the playful banter he managed while they snarled and sardonically insulted one another in an exchange of well-intentioned jaunty jesting.

"Mundane, huh?" she purred over the phone, rolling back over onto her back, feeling the soft fabric of her blankets brush agaisnt her strangely sensitive abdomen. "That's a big word for someone with such a peabrain."

"Ah, shut up. This peabrain's got a doctorate in psychology. If anything, you're the one with the peabrain... Still stuck with diplomatic relations."

"You charming ape."

Blake started to imagine what friendly playing with Sun would feel like in bed, wondering how it felt to have another plaything sticking around to give her some extra closure. What would he be doing with his sneaky tail? Surely he'd go wild over the costume she wore, maybe she would let him, of all people who would knowing blabber off about how the damned thing existed, see it on. He was one of the three people she could actually trust, after all. Then again, it'd be hard to explain his dogged nosebleed that would last the next three days.

"There is one more thing," Sun's voice suddenly flooded with a dreadful seriousness that Blake never expected her faunus companion to possess.

"Kitty-cat's" ears twitched a little as her body involuntarily shook in a nerve-wrecking anticipation of what Sun had to say next. She never liked hearing bad news, especially if it came from someone she took as mostly cheerful. Just imagine how depressing it would be to see Ruby moping about, she theorized, and then take that negative sentiment and combine it with the cringe-worthy sight of a couple's heartbreaking separation. If anything Sun said would ever border on the lines of something melancholically serious, then-

"I'm coming to town for a few days and I was wondering..."

Just as her anxiety had engulfed her conscience, a snicker came to a halt by her willed stifling thereof. How laughter could be such an inappropriate reaction. She knew exactly how she would respond.

"If you could stay at my place, yes, I know." Blake deadpanned through her side of the phone, at first with a disgruntled look of exasperation that gradually mellowed to a gentle smile.

One could imagine the priceless expression of disappointment on the Monkey faunus' face. But it was not to be, however, as Blake's finally morphed into one of genuine delight as she pronounced her resolution.

"And the answer is yes."

Her eyes wandered over to the now drooling blonde in her bed that started to cuddle with Blake's free forearm. In time, she would have three blondes to deal with: Three of whom came off a little odd; two of which would prove rather entertaining for her own intransigent purposes; and one whom she actually had some means of feelings for. Her winter would prove... Interesting, to say the least, and crazy at best. But when had crazy gone wrong for her since?

"You're always welcome to, Sun."

* * *

About two years had passed since Pyrrha last fully enjoyed herself.

Long ago, when she still moped about in the absence of her meaning to nurture others, Pyrrha took more joy in holing herself up in her house after her rounds and teaching. She never had the audacity to meet new people. She wanted a normal life to enjoy without trouble until he came back and let the chips fall where they may afterwards. Though, the last time she ended a sentence like that, she ended up dropping her weaponry to save the very boy who sat next to her. Her will forced the chips to land where she wished, in the end. As for the chips, they might as well be made of metal.

Regardless, after a small chat and a rendezvous later, Pyrrha went sightseeing around the beautiful city of Vale, which she'd neglected during her prolonged period of reclusiveness. With Jaune by her side, an enthusiastic Nora leading the way and a reluctant Ren in tow, she went to see the grand central area of the city where the iconic pavilions were. They went sauntering to the docks next to breath the soft smell of the sweet sea, not before checking in on the city park and its odd zoo. Last they'd done that, Pyrrha remembered, was within their first year together at Beacon. Since then, the city had felt familiar enough to know every street and district to a satisfactory degree for navigation.

Come sundown, Pyrrha felt exhausted from all the walking that was formally nothing for her fitness. Inactivity had cost her this much and she let her disability become a lesson to never plunge into solidarity ever again. Thank goodness for the arrival of Jaune or she might never have learnt that much. For the first time since their dangerous adventures out to the wild or to hostile environments, Pyrrha had been plunged into a position of slight discomfort that brought her a considerable amount of exhilaration.

She liked the thrill of different things. She enjoyed deviations from the normal habitude of the world she showed no real interest in. It gave that sense of surprise without the adrenaline jamming reaction that slowed her whole world to the almost one-hundredth of its normal speed. Take the ethereal sensation of falling backwards and remove the gut-wrenching indication of fear and Pyrrha's every day life with it's original, missing, multifarious nature put her right in the present moment at any given time. It was serene, at best, if not satisfying, both emotionally and metaphysically.

"Hey Pyrrha!" Nora shouted, still in her combat outfit. "Ren and I want to go get some crêpes! You want one?"_  
_

"No thanks," the redhead nervously replied, attempting to hide her nascent hunger. "I've had a bit too much."

"And you Jaune?" the green-clad artist pondered from behind.

"I'll take one," Jaune spoke in a firm voice. "I've never had one before, so I guess it's time for another surprise."

For the slightest moment that Jaune had parted her side to choose from among the many flavors of paste for his little snack, Pyrhha had already begun to feel insecure, incomplete almost. With nothing beside her to give her warmth in the already cold autumn days, she put a hand up to her other arm where Jaune's heat managed to radiate to. The disgusting feeling of losing that sense of accompaniment irked her and she vertically shook on spot until she spotted the nearby bench to have at least **something** in contact with her.

Someway, somehow, though, Jaune managed to subconsciously make his way over to where Pyrrha decided to take a minute and sit down. The distance she had unsuccessfully tried to create between her and the current focus of her attention had soon become non-existent with a thud, creek and sigh of relief. Pyrrha shifted her own buttocks over a few inches away from him to avoid the possibility of her bodily parts drifting over too far.

The little self restraint she kept up, however, slowly eroded away as the aroma of Jaune's concoction came slithering it's way up her nose and into the more primal part of her mind that begged her to launch herself towards the source of pleasure and ravish it. Eventually, rather than sneaking a few glances at the steam that rose from within the dough wrapped goodness, she'd turned her entire head in his direction.

Though she had previously done so already, Pyrrha took the liberty to scan his face, dipping her head down as her eyes went up and pulling her cranium back while she squinted. All the little details she hadn't noticed before started to materialize with every sudden gestrue she made to obtain a new angle. There was a faint remnant of a scar that ran down his left eye; a touch of dark brown around his neck where something might have cut him once. Some things even a massive influx of aura couldn't deal with removing, Pyrrha knew that much, but for someone who possessed so much and could use it with such efficacy, Jaune must have gone through rather tough times whilst abroad somewhere out there and over the rainbow.

And those eyes! How have they grown so sharp and exigent? How have they become charred steel and ragged sapphires from their marine glow from years ago? What had he done to deserve this? She would run a hand down his chin but decided to keep her composure and discipline straight. No one could just suddenly decide to act all obsessed with the prospect of ravishing the likes of a man whose new body incited a burning sensation in her pelvic cavity. Whimpering would not serve her well with how sore she suddenly felt in her chest from all the lustful sympathy she had.

Expediently making good use of her short lapse in thought, Pyrrha shook her head to clear her mind. What was wrong with her? She wasn't normally like this. She didn't normally just faun over someone while she sat down, thighs in heat as her hands shivered in regulating fear. Damnit! For a gentle woman who showed no real carnal cravings for another man, and one who would accept that of a man, she'd failed her own standards and become one of those easily swayed girls she vowed never to stoop down to. What a disgrace!

"You want some? You can have a bite if you want."

"No," Pyrrha chided, successful in her hiding evident surprise. "What made you ask?"

"I could say that it's because you're staring at it?" Jaune turned his head such that the side of his face with a cocked brow had stuck it's cheek out at her.

Her face glowed the same color as her mane. "But I could also say that I made a lucky guess."

"There you go, doing your great guesses again."

"You know, just casually and all." Jaune held out an open palm to deny her offer while she had an adorable pout to go with her endearing, tacit demand as to whether or not he'd like his crêpe back. "You can keep it. I'm really not that hungry. I just wanted to try how it tasted, you know?"

"Thanks," Pyrrha finally whimpered from behind the stuffed wrap of dough encased in a firm sheet of paper. She could toss the stupid dessert her shameful staring earned in the trash bin a couple feet to her right, or she could suck it up and just eat it as a means of self-punishment. In the end though, she'd only eaten a half of what remained from Jaune's crêpe before casually tossing it over into the bin, as per her original plan.

Pyrrha bit her lip while she slowly inched her hand closer to his bare fingers. Without the lengthy gloves she normally wore, she wanted to feel the touch of his skin again, wondering if it'd hardened from last she remembered. Visually, the texture of his flesh seemed significantly more defined: The wrinkles where the meager amount of them showed, came out easily under the shining surface of his epidermis but still had a velvet texture that gave off the impression that he was, of all things, silky smooth. She wondered if that rung true and eventually crept her fingertips to his index knuckle.

"My apologies," Jaune quickly responded, shrinking his arm back to his lap to his companion's chagrin. "Must've shifted my way over without noticing... Not that I'm trying anything, but you know..."

His voice trailed off to a soft murmur as grumbles started coming from his slightly parted lips. It was another something she found rather adorable about him whenever he openly expressed his discomfort. Rivaling it's daintiness was the sitcom worthy scenario of Ren and Nora, who wandered from one food stand to the next. Pyrrha smiled, out of jealousy perhaps, at the intimate interaction between two completely polar individuals as they bickered about what to get next. Not that they had a budget or anything, Beacon graduates were way better off than the vast majority of the world. Although, she supposed that they had somewhat differing tastes, adding more to the endearing nature of their relationship.

"Sometimes I wish they'd just start it off."

By the time Jaune had registered that she'd said something, Ren and Nora had already started to argue over who would pay for the bills. Races to pull out cash from wallets turned into forcing the other away to pay in his or her stead. It wasn't uncommon, for those who had previously witnessed their little spats. Their interactions wouldn't come as a surprise either: As friends who so much as saw each other once every month or so, no wonder they would have so much energy about each other. Regardless, all this had stipulated much reasonable speculations of their... Rapport, which was more or less a ludicrous myth.

"Odd way of thinking about your friends, but sure, I guess."

"Nora's been away for long periods of time," she finally explained. "She joined the Vale Scout Corps after she graduated, said she wanted a life of adventure and not some desk job that would eat away at her energy. Nobody could imagine her sitting still, after all, she never once did so back in the days. Quite unlike Ren, if you ask me. He's gotten mellower already, as if he hadn't gotten sweet enough. You put them together and, all of a sudden, you see wonderful chemistry going on. You can't help but wonder how far it'd go and imagine all the things they could do..."

Before Pyrrha could continue, she'd noticed Jaune's acerbic silence as his eyes had intently focused on the subject of her monologue.

"I just don't understand why they're still so platonic with one another."

"I wouldn't hope for so much to happen between two people," Jaune responded, head now leaned backwards to peer at the sky. "relationships are a result of an individual's willing conscience and the rapport it creates with another fellow conscience known as the other. Anything could come next really. You could suddenly feel like punching the person you think looks snobby in the face, or smothering them in your kisses if they're attractive. In this case, things could just go on well and steady and we can't ask for more. It really isn't anything we can control, anyways."

"Well, when a man and a woman are alone and together, something's bound to happen, right?"

"Not necessarily," Jaune mused with a finger on his chin. "I mean, look at us: We're just sitting here eating crêpes and watching two other people duke it out with their playful punches, neutral snarking and baffling couple complex."

What Pyrrha would give to receive a shot of morphine.

"Unless you count creepily watching your adorable companions with a close friend as something worth noting, which, I guess, is still doing something."

Scratch the morphine. Cue the breath of life.

"I would think so," Pyrrha responded with a feint giggle at the end of her conclusion, breath still trapped in her lungs as she sputtered near the end.

"Well, we'll see how this goes," Jaune responded, leaning forward onto his fists, propped by his elbows on a pair of sturdy legs. "Let the chips fall where they may and then make any judgements we want to afterwards, I guess."

She didn't know why, but Pyrrha somehow giggled her way around again without the instinctive hand to cover her mouth. Something about him had made her grown so simple from her refined habits. Slowly, her body weight had shifted, in an unorthodox means of magnetism she had no control over, towards Jaune. Turned out that just having her hand in his immediate proximity did not measure up to how much she'd wanted to just be able to touch him.

_Just a little closer, _her mind blew surges of adrenaline to make sure she could enjoy the very moment of when her skin had finally rested upon his tough deltoid. Polarity between cells did their small work as she felt the static run from the ends of her nerves along her neck. Slowly, but surely, her livid hair had just barely landed on the soft fabric of his black hoodie and her chest cramped immediately, leaving numbness in the following seconds where she'd let the rest of her shoulder and arm follow suit before a constant swelling took place of her absence in angellic euphoria. How she'd missed this...

"Hey~!" The redhead's eyes snapped towards her formidably energetic teammate who bunny hopped with a waving arm over at the far caramel apple stand with a rather disgraced Asian man in tow. Poor Ren. "Are you guys going to keep flirting? We're moving on to find somewhere to eat!"

Before Jaune could visibly notice, she'd managed to recoil her way back to an upright posture a couple inches away from where he once sat in a brooding silence. Too embarrassed to reply, Pyrrha turned her head such that her hair barely concealed the flustered frown on her cherry red lips. She did not feel Jaune's gaze upon her; he hadn't caught her signs of duress nor did he seem as if he cared. Remembering that the best she could do in moments of awkwardness, she stiffened her upper lip and waited for Jaune to do something.

Since when had she become this submissive and shy?

"Coming, Nora!" Jaune politely yelled in return, flashing a quick wave of his own before turning to Pyrrha. She'd thought that he had intended to stay, but her lover gently tugged on her arm as his leaning inertia brought them both to their feet. If getting swept up by a Prince Charming could feel like anything, this was as close as Pyrrha ever got to.

"Come on," he said. "Let's not waste the time to stop observing the native species of hunters and huntresses in their natural habitat."

* * *

Well, a odd chapter, I know, but I had to dish something out before it fled from my mind.

Sorry if I haven't touched on Nora in a while and mentioned her only in passing. I can't really wrap my head around her jumpy personality (it irks me, really). I've seen a bit of genki girls in my life, given that I live in South East Asia as an Asian surrounded by more Asians who fit those stereotypes, and I've honestly been kind of put off by them. I can't promise that I'll try, but you'll have to take my word that I will do the best to at least attempt something from Nora's point of view at some point in time.

Need to watch the whole of season one again. I'm suffering from RWBY withdrawal, evident from my constantly checking and refreshing reddit, tumblr, pixiv, dA and Monty's twitter page every three seconds or so.


End file.
